Sonia Gandhi to Work With Like-minded Parties to Defeat BJP in 2019 Lok Sabha Elections

New Delhi, February 8: Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi has set a role for herself for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and said she would bring "like-minded" parties together to defeat the Bharatiy

New Delhi, February 8: Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi has set a role for herself for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and said she would bring “like-minded” parties together to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party. The next general elections in just 14 months away and all the political parties have pulled up their socks in the election season.

“As for myself, as Chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party, I will work with the Congress President and other colleagues in discussions with like-minded, political parties to ensure that in the next election, the BJP is defeated and India is restored to a democratic, inclusive, secular, tolerant and economically progressive path,” Sonia said.

In her address to the Congress Parliamentary Party, Sonia called upon party leaders and workers to prepare for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The Congress was mauled at the hands of the BJP in the 2014 general elections and were reduced to a mere 44 seats in the 543-member House. “Friends, we have to be in a state of readiness for the national elections which are due in slightly over a year – and might well be called earlier as they were in 2004. No doubt 2014 was a severe setback, but I am convinced that it was an aberration. ”

Sonia also congratulated party leaders and workers for Congress’s performance in Gujarat and Rajasthan bypolls and said “winds of change are coming”. “The people of our country, people belonging to all sections of our society—are getting disillusioned with the present regime. It is for us to channel this discontent into support. We have demonstrated our resilience before and we are now called upon to do so again. For this we must not only highlight the abject failures of the Modi government but more importantly, build a positive and credible narrative for ourselves on issues of public concern,” Sonia said.

Calling Congress president Rahul Gandhi “her boss”, Sonia said that party’s fortune will revive under him. With Karnataka Assembly elections due this year, Sonia said, “I am sure that very soon the election results in Karnataka too will underline the resurgence of the Congress. ”

Karnataka is one of the few states that is being ruled by the Congress. The party is going all out to woo voters and Rahul will kickstart his campaign on February 10. The state will witness a direct contest between Congress and BJP with several parties in the fray.